


Words Swimming Through Her Ears

by RobinsonsWereHere



Series: Whump Week 2019 [2]
Category: Psych
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jules whump, but it's ok bc they just wanna help their loved ones, cops doing vaguely sketchy things, drugged jules, lassie is a good older bro, nonconsensual drug use, whump week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsonsWereHere/pseuds/RobinsonsWereHere
Summary: While chasing down drug dealers, Juliet gets dosed with far too much of the drug. It's up to Lassiter to keep her safe, and find some way to counteract the effects. Because if he doesn't, hissisterpartner will die.





	Words Swimming Through Her Ears

**Author's Note:**

> wow a fic that has no shules whatsoever!! I think this legit might be my fist non-shules psych fic. Anyway, a few more specific warnings: firstly, if you're sensitive to topics of drug use, maybe don't read this. The drug is entirely fictional but the effects are described vividly. And one of those effects is vomiting, so if that's a no-no for you, maybe find something else. Otherwise, enjoy!

Lassiter paces his living room, holding his ringing cell phone to his ear. His partner is on his couch, glassy-eyed and silent. He’s growing more worried by the minute, and the way O’Hara is ashen except for a flush in her cheeks doesn’t help. Watching her makes his heart race with concern, but he doesn’t dare look away.

Finally, the chief picks up.

_”Detective Lassiter, you reported an officer down and then went radio silent, and have since failed to check in at the station. I’ll put this in the simplest way possible: what the hell is going on?”_

Lassiter prepares to answer, but is distracted by a retching noise from the couch. _oh, hell._ Sure enough, O’Hara is getting sick into the trash can he’d set near her for that purpose. As unpleasant as it is for him to watch, he’s sure it’s worse for her. He politely asks the chief to hang on, knowing that it could possibly cost him his christmas bonus. After he manages to change the bag out of the trash can, he sits down, rubbing Juliet’s back as he prepares to explain the situation to the chief.

\-----

_Forty-three Minutes Earlier_

_Lassiter slammed one of the members of the drug ring against a wall, cuffed him, and turned to see how O’Hara was faring. When he looked, she was in close quarter combat with the other perp, but soon enough she sent a fist into his face and he fell to the ground, out cold. Carlton headed over to her. “Nice punch.”_

_“Thanks.” Juliet rubbed at her arm. “Jesus, it feels like I just got about a dozen flu shots at once. What the hell kind of weapon was he carrying?”_

_Lassiter felt his stomach begin to knot in trepidation as he knelt near the unconscious dealer. Next to him, as if it had fallen from his grasp when he dropped, was an empty syringe that probably had held at least five doses of the drug cocktail this ring was infamous for pushing. “Check your arm,” he told his partner, his words tight with worry._

_She frowned, looking from him to the syringe. Her eyes widened as she figured it out. “Oh, shit.”_

_Lassiter watched as O’Hara quickly shed her blazer and undid a few buttons on her shirt, pulling it down to examine her shoulder. “Huh.”_

_“Huh?” He paced closer. “What kind of an answer is ‘huh’?”_

_“Well, I think he got me with… whatever the hell that shit is.”_

_Carlton frowned, coming closer to look first at the puncture mark and then into his partner’s face. “Do you feel anything? Do we know what the effects of this drug are? What are the preliminary symptoms?”_

_Juliet shook her head, and he wondered if she’d been flushed beforehand or if that was a side effect. “First of all, it probably won’t take effect immediately, second, I’m still running on adrenaline from being in a fistfight, and third, now that I’m expecting symptoms I’ll probably start feeling them any minute. But I don’t. I’m fine.”_

_She took a few steps past him, probably going to haul the perp into his car and prove that she was fine. Before making it far, she stumbled and then leaned on the car for support. Her brows knitted in confusion, as if she couldn’t quite think of what she was doing. Even from a few feet away, Carlton could tell she was breathing too fast._

_He groaned and headed for his car, grabbing at his dispatch radio. “This is Detective Lassiter, I have an officer down. Requesting backup to bring in two cuffed suspects.”_

\-----

Karen pinches the bridge of her nose as she paces her office, cell phone held to her ear. “So why, exactly, is she not at the hospital?”

_”With what we’ve seen thus far, the drug attacks the immune system, and is generally volatile. If she sets foot in that sanitary cesspool, a secondary infection will kill her before the overdose does.”_

Karen curses; she remembers reading about that in an earlier report on this case. “Any known cures?”

_”Not that I know of. And who knows if a cure would even be effective on this large of a dose.”_

“Well, she’s survived one uncurable pathogen already. I’ll get you the right people, and we can hope that she fights this off.”

_”Hope is really more O’Hara’s department.”_

\-----

_Fifty-one minutes earlier_

_Carlton kept glancing at O’Hara in the passenger seat, even as he drove. He knew that with this drug he couldn’t take her to the hospital, but he also didn’t have any other ideas. “How are you doing?”_

_She made a small noise of pain. “My head hurts. I feel sick. I can’t think.”_

_“Well, if you’re going to hurl, do it out the window.” He tried to seem unconcerned, but it felt like some of his worry leaked into his words._

_She whimpered but didn’t move. Lassiter cursed under his breath. “Alright, I’m taking you to my house.”_

_Maybe five minutes later, O’Hara let out a moan of pain. “Stop- stop the car.” She must have taken him seriously about not puking inside the vehicle, because she stumbled out of the car and vomited into a ditch, on her hands and knees. He climbed over the center console and out her door as well, crouching to rub her back._

_“Don’t worry, O’Hara. I’ll get you someplace safe. You’ll be okay.”_

\-----

Juliet squirms, feeling like her clothes are burning as they rub against her skin. She thinks she’s lying down, but she doesn’t know for sure- she’s dizzy beyond belief. When her eyes are open, the room spins. When they’re not, she loses all sense of self-awareness and the urge to vomit increases tenfold. She tries to sit up but her arms won’t hold her, so instead, she collapses back on the couch. She lets out a whimper, or maybe a scream. Soon, a tall form stands near her. She can see him clearly, but she can’t focus enough to identify him. Her memories blend with reality and she’s not sure what reality even is anymore. 

“Ewan?”

The figure shifts. Maybe he shakes his head. “No, O’Hara. It’s me. It’s Lassiter.”

Confusion swirls in her mind and nausea swirls in her stomach. After she vomits into a trash can (had that been there before? Had she noticed it already?) a few more memories fall into place.

Right. Ewan is a would-be murderer. He doesn’t deserve to be called her brother.

“O’Hara… Juliet, how do you feel?”

She feels like the whole world is moving so much faster than usual, like her entire body is alive separately from her. She can’t think straight. She can’t think. Where is she?

Someone is talking to her, but Juliet feels as though she’s slowly drifting away. Drifting is good. Drifting means she doesn’t have to deal with the constant and painful sensations of consciousness.

She lets her eyes close, and the world slips away.

\-----

Lassiter paces as he waits for a call back from the chief. He can’t go after the drug lords until he knows O’Hara is safe. O’Hara won’t be safe until he gets information on antidotes from the drug lords. She’s asleep now, but still seems to be in pain. When she whimpers quietly, Carlton brushes her hair out of her face. Her skin is hot with fever.

“Hang in there, partner,” he whispers.

His phone rings- the chief. _”Neither of the dealers you brought in have any idea how to counteract the drug.”_

“D’you think that could change if I came down there and… convinced them?” Lassiter runs his fingers over his holstered gun.

_”Believe me, Detective, they know what’ll happen to them if anything happens to O’Hara. You’re not the only one who can apply force when necessary. I got them to say a lot, and most of it was useless bullshit- but the one who dosed her did have something to say. He seemed legitimately sorry- apparently he’d lost a brother to a mistake in dosing and it’s not a nice way to go. If he’d known any way to reverse the effects, I’m certain he would’ve told me.”_

“It damn well doesn’t look like a nice way to go! She’s clearly in pain, too out of it to say a word, probably running a fever, too-”

_”Lassiter, breathe. Maybe find a thermometer and get her temperature. Do you think she can be moved?”_

“Probably not,” he answers, on the hunt for a thermometer. “Hell, I don’t even want to leave the room. Do you need me to skype in or something?”

_”That will hardly help. I’ll drop by your apartment with information soon.”_

“Roger that.” Lassiter hangs up and goes in search of a thermometer. When he tries to take O’Hara’s temperature, she wakes, but not in any real sense of the word. Her eyes are glazed and her breathing is too fast. All he can do is run a hand soothingly over her arm and slide the thermometer into her mouth. While waiting for it to read, he notices she’s sweated through her blouse. _Nothing I can do about that now,_ thinks Carlton, before the beeping of the thermometer distracts him.

102.5

_Fuck._

\-----

Karen had brought all of the current files on this particular drug ring to Lassiter’s apartment, but when she arrives, she finds she’s too concerned about O’Hara to focus much on work. When Lassiter goes in search of ice packs to bring down his partner’s fever, Karen sits on the arm of the couch. O’Hara shifts in her sleep, making pained noises, and out of habit- Karen has a young daughter, after all- the chief brushes her hair from her face and lets her hand rest soothingly on the detective’s skin. And then Lassiter reenters, and it’s back to work.

“The guys in charge of production and distribution never actually show,” Karen notes, perusing the file.

“And the delivery boys are too scared to snitch,” Lassiter adds. “We could find one of their hideouts. Shake ‘em up a little bit. There’s a lot more that’s legal when you’re not in an interrogation room.”

She is slightly wary of her head detective’s tone, but she does agree. And if she’s there to keep him from beating the criminals to a pulp before they can say anything… it can’t go too badly, can it? “Detective, we have… four possible locations, and apparently less than six hours. Not to mention that if we start raiding, we may scare them off before we find them.”

Lassiter nods, his jaw set and brow furrowed with contemplation. “Well… what if we got a few teams of beat cops to canvass the areas a bit, just to see if any of them are obviously active? Then we- or, I, I guess- could stay with O’Hara until we know for sure where we’re headed.”

Karen scans the papers in front of her one last time. The locations are all different- a restaurant that was Mafia-run back in the day, a supposedly empty warehouse, an apartment building scheduled for demolition. She hopes it’s the warehouse- the restaurant will mean causing a fuss, and the people in city hall are notoriously difficult about letting anyone into unsafe buildings. Finally, she sighs and closes the files. “Keep me updated on her condition. I’m going back into the station. I’ll let you know when we have something.”

Lassiter grimaces. “I hate waiting.”

Instead of answering, Karen casts a worried glance at O’Hara, who is far too pale as she lies on the couch. Her chest is hardly rising or falling; the chief holds a hand in front of her mouth to check that she’s still breathing. Once she’s satisfied, she looks back up at Lassiter, her gaze dark and solemn. “I think you’ve got enough to deal with here to keep yourself distracted.”

\-----

Juliet wakes to the door slamming. This sets her into a panic, and she tries to get up before she’s awake for long enough to figure out what’s going on. She thinks she falls to the floor, but she’s dizzy and disoriented and can’t make a sound, let alone form words. She tries to push herself up, but her muscles spasm and she collapses again. Everything hurts, like someone’s taken a thousand knives to her skin, like she’s been caught in the crossfire of a hundred machine guns. Again, she attempts to cry out. Her throat is far too dry.

“O’Hara,” says a voice, somewhere above her. “Hey, O’Hara. Juliet. Look at me.”

A face comes into focus; when she recognizes Carlton, she smiles in relief. Carlton will keep her safe. With that, Juliet gives into the pain in her body and collapses back to the ground. For some reason, this upsets her partner.

“Hey, Juliet. C’mon. Get back on the couch.”

She doesn’t want to get on the couch. Doesn’t he know that moving hurts? Well, doing anything hurts, but she wants to move as little as possible. She’s fine on the floor. Except, breathing hurts too. Maybe she could stop doing that.

“Shit, fuck, O’Hara. Listen to me. You can stay on the floor if you want, but I need you to breathe, okay? You need to keep breathing.” Carlton curses again. “C’mon, I was supposed to have six more hours, not one,” he mutters. Juliet doesn’t know what he’s talking about. At the moment, she’s so spaced out that she doesn’t care. He’d said something about breathing, but she’s not sure if she is or isn’t. She really can’t feel anything except the pain that races through her veins. Her head pounds in time with her heart, but that can’t be right, because then her heart would be racing like she’d just done a dozen stair runs. She doesn’t think she could walk down a flight of stairs, at this point.

Juliet feels Carlton lift her, feels him hold her in his arms. Something in her head says whatever is going on is very bad. She scowls, trying desperately to use basic deduction skills. _What’s going on? What’s wrong?_

Her head, her chest, her entire body hurts too much for her to answer that question.

\-----

Carlton paces, loading one gun, then another, then another. The chief raises an eyebrow. “How many of those do you need?”

“Well, I can holster two, keep one in the small of my back, and one on my ankle. So, four.”

“Carlton, with what we’re planning, if we need four guns, we’ll have bigger problems.”

“Can’t ever be too prepared.”

“We’re heading for a restaurant at dinner time! We can’t just shoot up the place!”

“Chief, last I checked, the restaurant was run by the mafia.”

“Then you obviously haven’t checked since 1970! And also, that doesn’t mean there aren’t civilians dining there.”

“Alright, fine. Three guns, then.”

The chief sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “You know what, this is not the hill I’m dying on. Let’s get moving-”

She’s interrupted by shifting from the couch as O’Hara comes out of the fetal position long enough to vomit more or less into the trash can. There’s clearly blood. He frowns. “Uh, I don’t think we can leave her. She’s stopped breathing three times in the past hour.”

The chief rubs Juliet’s back. Carlton isn’t used to seeing her be physically affectionate, but he doesn’t mention it. “I called in a… medical professional.”

He narrows his eyes. “Why do you say it like that?”

“I’m not entirely certain he has any experience keeping people alive… but he did go to medical school. He should be qualified.”

“Oh god. Tell me it isn’t Strode.”

The doorbell rings. Carlton goes to answer it, and sure enough, Woody Strode is standing on his doorstep. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Lassiter groans.

“Hi, Detective! I’m sorry to hear Detective O’Hara isn’t feeling well!”

Lassiter feels a growl begin in his throat. “Just keep her alive, Strode. We’ll be back in under three hours.”

The chief nods her agreement with his estimate. “She’s drifting in and out of consciousness, but she hasn’t said anything for hours. She seems to be in pain, and she’s running a high fever.”

Woody might be slightly competent, because his answer seems logical. “Well, if it’s an unknown drug, the only thing I’d feel safe doing is ice to lower the fever. I’ll keep her stable until you two find the cure.”

“If there is one.”

The chief all but drags Lassiter to the door. “Let’s get moving. Strode, text us if anything big happens.”

“Good luck!”

“Thank you.”

\-----

The girl at the hostess stand narrows her eyes when she sees Karen’s badge, but Karen stares her down long enough that she turns on her heel and heads for the office near the kitchen. 

“Do you think she’s warning people to run?” Lassiter asks from his position next to her.

Karen slides her badge back on her belt. “If she is, they won’t have time.” She stalks after the hostess, Lassiter following. Sure enough, smoking a cigarette in the office is a man she knows is one of the leaders of this particular drug ring. Oh, no, they’d never caught him, but she’d been chasing him down for years, since he was a teenager following in his father’s footsteps. Now his father is in jail for life, so clearly Douglas Redmond is the big fish in his small pond.

Clearly he recognizes her, because he grinds out his cigarette with a sneer. “Long time no see, Chief.”

“I heard you and your boys have got something special out on the streets of my city, Redmond.”

“Your city? Is it now? ‘Cause I got a lotta people who really wanna buy what I’m selling.”

Karen folds her arms. “You realize that’s a verbal confession.”

His sneer turns triumphant. “Really? Is making good pasta a crime now?”

Lassiter, who has not been playing this game for as long as Karen has, stalks into the room. “You really wanna be a smart-ass? “Cause I think we have close enough to probable cause to search this place. I think we’ll find what we’re looking for. But if you keep talking, and I lose someone I care about to your nasty drug shit-”

Karen winces and quite literally shoves her head detective out of the small office. It’s too late- Redmond knows what they want. He grins. “Wow, Detective. You got a girlfriend who’s off the deep end? Brother? Sister? Who is it?”

Lassiter tries to answer, but the chief speaks before he can. “Funnily enough, it was one of your men who panicked and gave a lethal dose to one of my detectives. And although he’s fairly blunt, Detective Lassiter is right- it would be easy for us to convict you on multiple charges- including second degree assault of an officer- if we tried hard enough. But you see…” Karen takes a deep breath. What she’s about to do, she only does under extreme circumstances. And if this escalates much further, there’s a good chance she and Lassiter will be shooting their way out of the restaurant.

“Redmond, if you can get us an antidote, something to counteract the effects of half a dozen doses of this drug… I might forget, for the time being, any connection you have to the people pushing it.”

Redmond raises an eyebrow. “For the time being? The hell does that mean, Vick?”

She fixes him with a steely glare. “If O’Hara walks out of this case unscathed, you do too.”

He seems unconvinced. “You’ve been chasing me for decades, and now you’re gonna let me get away? You know you won’t get this chance again.”

Karen straightens her spine. “I’ve made my offer. You know, I’m just the chief of police. I’m not usually the one doing the intimidating.” She shoots a meaningful glance at her head detective. “Lassiter, finish up here. I’ll be outside when you’re done.”

Lassiter meets her in the parking lot ten minutes later with a scowl on his face, blood on his knuckles, and a ziploc of labeled syringes in his hands.

\-----

Juliet doesn’t know how long she spends tossing and turning in a feverish haze of pain, but she does know when she wakes up that something is different. She’s cooler, almost chilly in her damp blouse. Her head aches and she feels slightly hungover, but the nausea is nowhere near as bad as it had been earlier. And she can actually see, and think, and process. Humming in relief, she burrows down into the couch. Carlton’s couch.

That thought makes her sit up. “Carlton?” Her voice is hoarse- she assumes from lack of use- but he hears her anyway, and appears quickly.

“O’Hara, you’re up, thank god. I was just trying to make a decent soup- all I’ve got is tomato, but I thought you might want something.”

She smiles. “I love tomato soup, and I am kind of hungry.” Tilting her head, she thinks for a second. “Carlton, what happened, after the guy stabbed me? How long was I out?”

Her partner gives a shaky sigh and sits down on the couch next to her. “Almost eight hours, Juliet. It took you three to wake up even after we gave you the antidote. I didn’t- I _couldn’t_ leave your side until I was sure your fever had broken.”

Juliet has many questions on the tip of her tongue, but as always, her partner doesn’t even need her to ask them. “I was- I was scared, O’Hara. You were burning up, you were clearly in pain… I thought you were going to- I thought I might lose you.”

She leans into him, and it doesn’t take him long to give her a hug. “You didn’t lose me, Carlton. I’m tougher than that.”

He sighs in relief; she feels his chest move as she leans on it. “Thank god.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments & kudos are much appreciated!


End file.
